Traditional and ecological fires and effects of bushfire laws in north Australian savannas

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noel Preece
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
The North ◽  
In Fire

Landscape fires are common and frequent across the north Australian savannas, and are arguably an essential component of regional ecosystem dynamics. Seasonal biases in fire regimes and the high frequency of late dry season fires in a large proportion of the region have been presented as an impediment to appropriate land management. Legislation regulating the lighting of fires applies to the whole of the savannas. The legislation seeks to control the lighting of fires, provides for permit systems to operate in each jurisdiction, and is supported by policies and guidance manuals. The present paper argues that the legislation fails to address prescribed burning, the biophysical and social realities of contemporary regimes, and management needs. The policies and legislation are in need of some fundamental changes, including recognition of the concept of prescribed burning, mechanisms to promote regional fire management strategies and plans, and recognition of indigenous traditional practices.

Bayes Nets as a method for analysing the influence of management actions in fire planning

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 909 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. D. Penman ◽  
O. Price ◽  
R. A. Bradstock
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Relative Reduction ◽  
Holistic Model ◽  
Bayes Nets ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Fire Planning ◽  
In Fire

Wildfire can result in significant economic costs with inquiries following such events often recommending an increase in management effort to reduce the risk of future losses. Currently, there are no objective frameworks in which to assess the relative merits of management actions or the synergistic way in which the various combinations may act. We examine the value of Bayes Nets as a method for assessing the risk reduction from fire management practices using a case study from a forested landscape. Specifically, we consider the relative reduction in wildfire risk from investing in prescribed burning, initial or rapid attack and suppression. The Bayes Net was developed using existing datasets, a process model and expert opinion. We compared the results of the models with the recorded fire data for an 11-year period from 1997 to 2000 with the model successfully duplicating these data. Initial attack and suppression effort had the greatest effect on the distribution of the fire sizes for a season. Bayes Nets provide a holistic model for considering the effect of multiple fire management methods on the risk of wildfires. The methods could be further advanced by including the costs of management and conducting a formal decision analysis.

scholarly journals Effects of policy change on wildland fire management strategies: evidence for a paradigm shift in the western US?

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse D. Young ◽  
Alexander M. Evans ◽  
Jose M. Iniguez ◽  
Andrea Thode ◽  
Marc D. Meyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fire Management ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Fire Weather ◽  
Western Us ◽  
Strategic Options ◽  
In Fire ◽  
Wildland Fire Management

In 2009, new guidance for wildland fire management in the United States expanded the range of strategic options for managers working to reduce the threat of high-severity wildland fire, improve forest health and respond to a changing climate. Markedly, the new guidance provided greater flexibility to manage wildland fires to meet multiple resource objectives. We use Incident Status Summary reports to understand how wildland fire management strategies have differed across the western US in recent years and how management has changed since the 2009 Guidance for Implementation of Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. When controlling for confounding variation, we found the 2009 Policy Guidance along with other concurrent advances in fire management motivated an estimated 27 to 73% increase in the number of fires managed with expanded strategic options, with only limited evidence of an increase in size or annual area burned. Fire weather captured a manager’s intent and allocation of fire management resources relative to burning conditions, where a manager’s desire and ability to suppress is either complemented by fire weather, at odds with fire weather, or put aside due to other priorities. We highlight opportunities to expand the use of strategic options in fire-adapted forests to improve fuel heterogeneity.

Changing fuel management strategies - The challenge of meeting new information and analysis needs

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan G. Conard ◽  
Timothy Hartzell ◽  
Michael W. Hilbruner ◽  
G. Thomas Zimmerman
Keyword(s):  
Fire Management ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Hazard ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
Fuel Management ◽  
Burned Areas ◽  
Ecological Principles ◽  
In Fire

This paper was presented at the conference ‘Integrating spatial technologies and ecological principles for a new age in fire management’, Boise, Idaho, USA, June 1999 ‘The earth, born in fire, baptized by lightning since before life"s beginning, has been and is a fire planet.’ E.V. Komarek Attitudes and policies concerning wildland fire, fire use, and fire management have changed greatly since early European settlers arrived in North America. Active suppression of wildfires accelerated early in the 20th Century, and areas burned dropped dramatically. In recent years, burned areas and cost of fires have begun to increase, in part due to fuel buildups resulting from fire suppression. The importance of fire as an ecosystem process is also being increasingly recognized. These factors are leading to changes in Federal agency fire and fuels management policies, including increased emphasis on use of prescribed fire and other treatments to reduce fuel loads and fire hazard. Changing fire management strategies have highlighted the need for better information and improved risk analysis techniques for setting regional and national priorities, and for monitoring and evaluating the ecological, economic, and social effects and tradeoffs of fuel management treatments and wildfires. The US Department of Interior and USDA Forest Service began the Joint Fire Science Program in 1998 to provide a sound scientific basis for implementing and evaluating fuel management activities. Development of remote sensing and GIS tools will play a key role in enabling land managers to evaluate hazards, monitor changes, and reduce risks to the environment and the public from wildland fires.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Community Participation and Fire and Rescue Sub-dept. In Fire Prevention Tanjung Priuk District

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-28
Author(s):  
Ardani Ardani ◽  
Djaka Permana
Keyword(s):  
Human Resources ◽  
Community Participation ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Department ◽  
Fire Prevention ◽  
The North ◽  
In Fire ◽  
The City

This study aims to determine the level of community participation in fire prevention and management in Tanjung Priuk Subdistrict, the City of Administration against Fire Disasters in North Jakarta,  the theory used in this research is the opinion of M. Nuh Minister of Education in the era of President Bambang Yudhoyono in Climbing the Amstein ladder to organize an ideal participation. The research method used is a qualitative method to obtain key data from interviews with legitimate sources that are directly involved in fire prevention and management and are supported by data from field observations. The data is then analyzed by the triangulation process. To find out the level of community participation. The results showed that the level of participation in fire prevention in Tanjung Priuk District had a range of information, consultations and appointments. the training program, which is carried out as an annual program, is provided for the community to provide information one way. In the management process, the community is at the second level of the seventh stage because the community is already a partner in the fire department before the fire department arrives at the fire location, the community has tried to extinguish the fire independently. To increase community participation in fire prevention and management, the Fire Department of the North Jakarta City Administration Office must optimize human resources, as well as other fire management resources, to be able to act also to provide costs for Balakar (Voluntary Fire) every month.

Conserving Australia’s threatened native mammals in predator-invaded, fire-prone landscapes

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bronwyn A. Hradsky
Keyword(s):  
Introduced Species ◽  
Statistical Power ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Population Recovery ◽  
Red Foxes ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Introduced Predators ◽  
In Fire

Abstract Inappropriate fire regimes and predation by introduced species each pose a major threat to Australia’s native mammals. They also potentially interact, an issue that is likely to be contributing to the ongoing collapse of native mammal communities across Australia. In the present review, I first describe the mechanisms through which fire could create predation pinch points, exacerbating the impacts of predators, including red foxes, Vulpes vulpes, and feral cats, Felis catus, on their native mammalian prey. These mechanisms include a localised increase in predator activity (a numerically mediated pathway) and higher predator hunting success after fire (a functionally moderated pathway), which could both increase native mammal mortality and limit population recovery in fire-affected landscapes. Evidence for such interactions is growing, although largely based on unreplicated experiments. Improving native mammal resilience to fire in predator-invaded landscapes requires addressing two key questions: how can the impacts of introduced predators on native mammals in fire-affected areas be reduced; and, does a reduction in predation by introduced species result in higher native mammal survival and population recovery after fire? I then examine potential management options for reducing predator impacts post-fire. The most feasible are landscape-scale predator control and the manipulation of fire regimes to create patchy fire scars. However, robust field experiments with adequate statistical power are required to assess the effectiveness of these approaches and preclude null (e.g. compensatory mortality) or adverse (e.g. mesopredator or competitor release) outcomes. Ongoing predator management and prescribed burning programs provide an opportunity to learn through replicated natural experiments as well as experimental manipulations. Standardised reporting protocols and cross-jurisdiction monitoring programs would help achieve necessary spatial and environmental replication, while multi-trophic, spatially explicit simulation models could help synthesise findings from disparate study designs, predict management outcomes and generate new hypotheses. Such approaches will be key to improving management of the complex mechanisms that drive threatened native mammal populations in Australia’s predator-invaded, fire-prone landscapes.

Inter- and intra-annual profiles of fire regimes in the managed forests of Canada and implications for resource sharing

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steen Magnussen ◽  
Stephen W. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Joint Distribution ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Season ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
In Fire ◽  
Regional Synchrony

Year-to-year variation in fire activity in Canada constitutes a key challenge for fire management agencies. Interagency sharing of fire management resources has been ongoing on regional, national and international scales in Canada for several decades to better cope with peaks in resource demand. Inherent stressors on these schemes determined by the fire regimes in constituent jurisdictions are not well known, nor described by averages. We developed a statistical framework to examine the likelihood of regional synchrony of peaks in fire activity at a timescale of 1 week. Year-to-year variations in important fire regime variables and 48 regions in Canada are quantified by a joint distribution and profiled at the Provincial or Territorial level. The fire regime variables capture the timing of the fire season, the average number of fires, area burned, and the timing and extent of annual maxima. The onset of the fire season was strongly correlated with latitude and longitude. Regional synchrony in the timing of the maximum burned area within fire seasons delineates opportunities for and limitations to sharing of fire suppression resources during periods of stress that were quantified in Monte Carlo simulations from the joint distribution.

Contemporary fire regime risks to key ecological assets and processes in north Australian savannas

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Edwards ◽  
Jeremy Russell-Smith ◽  
Mick Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Suspended Sediment Transport ◽  
Change Models ◽  
Positive Effects

Despite the intact appearance of relatively unmodified north Australian savannas, mounting evidence indicates that contemporary fire regimes characterised by frequent, extensive and severe late dry season wildfires are having deleterious effects on a range of regional water, soil erosion, biodiversity conservation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions values. For the high rainfall (>1000 mm year–1) savannas (426 000 km2), we assessed the spatial effects of contemporary fire regimes within the context of ecosystem response models and three plausible alternative fire management scenarios on ecosystem attributes. Over the 2008–12 assessment period, mean annual fire frequency (0.53) comprised mostly late dry season fires. Although spatially variable, contemporary fire regimes resulted in substantial GHG emissions, hill slope erosion and suspended sediment transport, a slight decline in carbon biomass and slight positive effects on fire-vulnerable vegetation. Based on available climate change models and strategic fire management practice, we show that, relative to business-as-usual, improved fire management involving strategic prescribed burning results in substantial benefits to most ecosystem attributes, including under enhanced climate change conditions, whereas in the absence of improved fire management, climate change results in substantially worse outcomes.

Cost effectiveness of fire management strategies in southern Australia

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 427 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. D. Penman ◽  
B. A. Cirulis
Keyword(s):  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Simulation Software ◽  
Bayesian Decision ◽  
Fire Simulation ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Increased Risk

Fire-management agencies invest significant resources to reduce the impacts of future fires. There has been increasing public scrutiny over how agencies allocate fire-management budgets and, in response, agencies are looking to use quantitative risk-based approaches to make decisions about expenditure in a more transparent manner. Advances in fire-simulation software and computing capacity of fire-agency staff have meant that fire simulators have been increasingly used for quantitative fire-risk analysis. Here we analyse the cost trade-offs of future fire management in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and surrounding areas by combining fire simulation with Bayesian Decision Networks. We compare potential future-management approaches considering prescribed burning, suppression and fire exclusion. These data combined costs of treatment and impacts on assets to undertake a quantitative risk analysis. The proposed approach for fuel treatment in ACT and New South Wales (NSW) provided the greatest reduction in risk and the most cost-effective approach to managing fuels in this landscape. Past management decisions have reduced risk in the landscape and the legacy of these treatments will last for at least 3 years. However, an absence of burning will result in an increased risk from fire in this landscape.

Delivering effective savanna fire management for defined biodiversity conservation outcomes: an Arnhem Land case study

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Evans ◽  
Jeremy Russell-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Prescribed Burns ◽  
Active Fire ◽  
Arnhem Land ◽  
Ecological Threshold ◽  
History Of ◽  
In Fire

Given the recent history of frequent and extensive late dry season wildfire in Australia’s fire-prone northern savannas, regional conservation-based fire management programs typically aim to mitigate wildfire through the use of strategic prescribed burning during the cooler early dry season. However, it remains unclear as to the extent such environmental management concerns are being addressed by these renewed fire management efforts. This study documents changes in fire regime in the western Arnhem Land region of northern Australia associated with the implementation of active fire management since 2006. Over a 12-year period, the regional fire regime has transitioned from late dry season, wildfire-dominated to being characterised by a majority of fires occurring as small early dry season prescribed burns. Although overall area burnt has not significantly decreased, most ecological threshold metrics have improved, with the exception of those describing the maintenance of longer-unburnt habitat. Challenges involved with defining, delivering, monitoring and evaluating heterogeneity targets are discussed.

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